


no longer easy (on the eyes)

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2014 [12]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Because this is fluffy. And slightly homicidal at points?, Community: wishlist_fic, Did I mention fluff?, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Jotun Loki, Marriage, Married Couple, Odin's A+ Parenting, Prompt Fic, Sequel, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:34:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the first Thor movie happens. Then Buffy happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no longer easy (on the eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> Saintbuffy asked for BtVS/MCU – Buffy/Loki – [Waking up in Vegas verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/87493).
> 
> I've reverted back to form. The title is from Brothers on a Hotel Bed by Deathcab for Cutie, same as the first story in this series.
> 
> I saved this for last. I hope it deserved the wait. Enjoy and Merry PC Christmas to you all.

+

Buffy wakes up in the Houses of Healing, which is not a new experience – unfortunately. 

She’s disoriented. 

This is also not unusual. The source used to be mostly kidnappings and the odd near-death, but for the past century or so, it’s been drinking contests and husband-shaped shenanigans, which usually ended with someone fighting for their life and some passing out to boot.

So, being disoriented is also not a new experience. Not at four hundred plus years old. 

What is new is her handmaid sitting by her bedside, looking worried, instead of aforementioned husband, looking bored. 

Loki gets banged around, Buffy camps at his bedside. Buffy gets banged around, Loki camps at her bedside. They are a package deal, a two-for-one, the dynamic duo, voted Most Likely to Kill Everyone With Codependent Sappiness, joined at the freaking hip. 

They’ve been married for ninety-eight years and Buffy has _never_ woken up alone after an injury, not even that one time half of Asgard was on fire and Odin was raging for Loki to _put the fucking fire out, or else_. 

So the second Buffy realizes she’s alone with the girl sitting next to her bed, something like dread settles in her stomach. 

Rewind. 

Coronation. Loki poking fun at Thor, something ugly in his eyes that Buffy never misses and Thor never sees. Ice Giants. 

Going to Jotunheim, which, wow, bad idea. Loki sneaking off to exchange quick words with a guard, Loki rolling his eyes at everything and winking at her, just once, and yep, _husband-shaped shenanigans_. 

She knew he wouldn’t take Thor being given the keys to the kingdom lying down. Not out of jealousy but because Thor honestly isn’t fit to rule his way out of a paper bag. The last time he was left in charge for all of three days, he almost started a war, ruined half an economy and drove Loki to pulling his own hair out. 

Buffy _likes_ Loki’s hair. It makes for a great handhold. 

So she let him proceed with whatever he was doing. Well, as much as anyone ever ‘lets’ Loki Silvertongue do anything. 

And then Thor exploded in predictable fashion all over Lauffi and everything went to hell and now here she is. Alone. In the Houses of Healing. 

That’s two signs of the apocalypse right here. 

“What happened?” she asks the girl by her side. Her name is Vala, a sweet thing of fifty, at most. She’s tall and gorgeous and every bit the Aesir Buffy will never be, all grace and bearing. She is also one of the few who seems to actually get along with Loki in this city. 

She didn’t, when Frigga handed her off to Buffy a few years ago, but she softened after a while. “He loves you dearly,” she commented, when Buffy asked. “If he were what people say he is, he would not be capable of that.”

Buffy decided she liked Vala that day. 

Here and now, the girl takes her hand and squeezes it, tightly, seemingly searching for words. 

“Start with Jotunheim,” Buffy commands, fighting to sit up. Her ribs are bandaged and she can feel the last traces of healing magic lingering around her head. Fractured skull, probably. They put people under for the healing. But she’s all better now, despite Vala’s attempts to stop her sitting up. 

“I’m fine, tell me what’s going on.” Because when people don’t know where to start, there’s usually way too much going on. 

“You were injured, my lady. The battle seemed lost when Odin appeared, bringing Thor and his warriors home. Your husband followed you here while the Allfather… he banished Thor, my lady. They say he put a spell on Mjolnir and cast both it and the Prince from this realm, powerless. That was three days ago. The Warriors Three and Sif have been causing a ruckus since then and everyone is in upheaval. Then, this morning, our King fell into his Sleep. Frigga has taken over the reign, Loki has disappeared into his rooms. There is,” she stops, squeezing Buffy’s hand even tighter. “There is something terrible happening, I think.”

Buffy would reassure her but a) she’s probably right and b) she’s already rolling out of bed, looking for her things. Her armor is gone, but there are clothes for her draped over a nearby chair, her usual array of weapons on top. She grabs a dagger, slices off her bandages under Vala’s protests and gets dressed at record speed. 

It leaves her a bit woozy, but if Thor is banished and Odin is out, then shit is piling high and for Loki to be hiding out in his rooms… well. Apocalypse. She was right. 

She snaps a few quick orders at Vala as she simultaneously ties her pants and jogs out the door, tucks her weapons more securely into place and then checks the red ribbon winding up her left wrist and forearm, tied crosswise as it has been for a century. 

Loki took it from her, that strip of cloth Thor used to marry them, when it started fraying at the edges, and she sulked for weeks until he presented her with it back, magiced into a neat ribbon, with runes in gold and a darker red sewn along its length, protection and detection, hiding and strength and healing and safety and luck and a hundred others she’s never needed to look up to understand. 

She’s worn it on her left arm ever since, the magic woven into it powerful enough to double as a shield in battle. The symbol of her marriage to Loki is literally a shield. She has no idea where the hell people get the idea from that her husband is an unfeeling asshole. 

She tugs on the knot tied in the crook of her elbow and finds it as tight as it always is. There are two people in this universe that can undo that knot, and neither of them ever would. 

Buffy smiles and picks up speed, slamming into Loki’s rooms – theirs, really, don’t think she actually sleeps in her own, those are only for appearances – at full throttle.

And coming to a screeching halt right inside the doorway. 

Loki is pacing, both hands wrapped tightly in his black hair, muttering under his breath in hurt, half-broken tones.

He is also blue. 

She must say that last bit out loud, because he stops, spins toward the door and promptly loses all color when he sees her. Well, at least she thinks he does. 

It’s hard to tell. He’s blue. 

But color aside, his eyes widen, his mouth does that little half-open thing that happens when he’s terrified and every muscle in his face, every line, screams pain, screams that he is _hurt_. 

Automatically, Buffy steps closer to make it better. 

He flinches. 

He actually flinches away from her and it makes her angry. She has no idea who she’s angry with, but she is really, really angry, because he hasn’t been this insecure, this _scared_ since the morning they woke up pseudo-Vegas-married and he thought she was going to run him through with a sword for tricking her. 

But here he is. Flinching. 

“What the hell is going on?” she demands, as calmly as she can, which isn’t very much, because her husband looks like a terrified, blue child and everything seems to have gone to shit. 

Get a little skull-fractured for three days and the world goes to hell. Seriously. 

“Loki? What’s going on here? Why are you suddenly so… blue?”

And red. His eyes are red. He looks like an albino bunny. In blue. And red.

“Isn’t it obvious,” he snaps, all his defenses going up at once. It makes her ache. “I’m Jotun,” he sneers. 

She blinks, cocks her head to one side and studies his new color scheme, which, yeah. It looks weird with the hair, but also kind of cool, pun not intended. And hot. Super hot. 

“Okay,” she answers, after a moment. “How? Did something happen on Jotunheim? Did your magic backfire? Is this a prank? What?”

“A spell failed,” he snarls, all spittle and vinegar and oh, it has been years since she saw him this mad. “A Jotun grabbed me in battle and instead of frostbite, I got this!” For emphasis, he thrusts out his arms, sleeves pulled back, to show off his new, shiny skin. 

Blue. 

Freaking blue. 

She’ll get over that. 

In a moment. 

She wonders if he’s cold to the touch, reaches out, watches him flinch away again.

Then his words finally register. Her hand drops. “What do you mean, a spell failed?”

That’s when his expression grows truly ugly. “I was born like this. Odin stole me as another relic, from Jotunheim after the war, to be his tool, his pawn for peace between our worlds. He gave me Aesir skin, gave me a life here, and all the while, he _knew_ what I was underneath. He knew I was _this_! A monster! I am a monster!”

She’s going to need better weapons. Bigger ones. Possibly her scythe. She slips past Loki, who backs away anyway, muttering under her breath about that magical dagger and where she put it. 

After a few minutes of turning the room inside-out, she gives up, growling, and spins toward the door again. She’ll kill Odin with her bare hands.

“Frigga will probably forgive me in a century or two. It’s not really sporting, killing him in his sleep, but he’s an _asshole_ and it’s not like I can take him when he’s awake, so I don’t really care and – “

There is a chest in her way. It’s a very well sculpted chest and she has known it for a long time. “What are you doing?” her darling husband demands, and it’s nice to know she can still confuse him out of a funk with a little bit of idiosyncratic behavior and wild stumbling around. 

She’s been married to him for a quarter of her life. You didn’t think she didn’t pick up a few tricks, did you? Misdirection is half of every good con. 

“I’m murdering the Allfather,” she informs him, blithely and tries to shove past. 

He doesn’t budge. And hey, he really is cool to the touch. Neat. 

“You would be executed for treason for the attempt alone,” he rebukes, blocking her path. “I am sure you will find another way to exact revenge for the wrong done to you – “

Wait, what?

“Done to me? What wrong was done to _me_?”

Are they in the same movie here? Because Buffy is pretty sure she was just told that her father in law is a lying sack of shit who kept youngest son as a tool to be used, never loving Loki as he should and yet never, ever explaining _why_. She’s not sure how that would affect her, except for pissing her off. Epically. 

“He knew full well that he was allowing you to marry a monster and did nothing to stop-“ 

She stops with a hand slapped over his mouth. “Are you high?” she asks. “Did you forget everything I’ve ever told you? Are you mistaking me for someone else? Do you have a second wife who is a royal bitch? What?”

He stares at her over the edge of her palm and they are probably not very good at communication, still, but they get there in the end, usually. 

She removes her hand. 

“I am a monster,” he whispers, brokenly. No sign of a sneer or snarl on his face anymore. All the fight drained out of him. “You are married to a monster.”

Buffy is going to kick Odin’s ball up to his teeth. More than once.

She’d like to make a quip about liking a little monster in her man, about how Loki has always had the potential to be, well, monstrous, but has never given in to it, how his blue seriously has the potential to turn her on, but it’s not what he needs to hear. 

All that can come later. Will come later. But for now, she picks up his right with her own and places it on her left forearm, where her shield ribbon sits. “I’m married to you,” she tells him, meeting his red gaze evenly. “I’m married to the man who made me this,” she traces both their fingers along the lines of red. “And if I kill Odin, it will be for hurting you and not… any of that shit you just said.”

He looks so very lost as he stares at her, open-mouthed, and she thought she’d broken him of that kind of self-doubt, of that lack of self-worth, but here they are. All it took to undo her hard work was Odin. It’s always Odin. Loki is never good enough, never brave enough, never normal enough. At least they now know why. 

Why nothing Loki did could ever measure up. 

“I’m on your side,” she repeats, because it’s all she has, all she’s had for decades. _I love you, I need you, I want you, I will fight for you and with you and you are mine._

“Jesus, Lokes, I am on your side. You know that. Come on, you know that.”

There is an eternity of stillness between them and Buffy doesn’t dare breathe. 

Then Loki nods and slowly, impossibly slowly, color starts bleeding back into his skin until he stands before her as he has always been, shiny pink and green-eyed.

“Pity,” she smiles, pressing their foreheads together. “I kind of liked the blue.”

He laughs jaggedly. 

“Let’s get out of here,” she commands. “Pack our things and leaving this damn place to _hang_. If I have to see Odin anytime soon, I actually will try to gut him with a butterknife.”

Another chuckle and Loki presses closer until their bodies are one long line, bottom to top, and she can feel him against her, all hard muscle and warm skin. 

“Yes,” he agrees.

The next time Buffy blinks, they’re in another place entirely, far from Asgard, Odin, and whatever the hell was supposed to come next. She laughs at Loki’s prompt response to her request and steps back without letting go of his hand. 

“Vanaheim?” she asks, after a look around. 

“Vanaheim,” he confirms, worrying her fingers between his own. His expression is normal again, like the past five minutes never happened, but Buffy can see how frayed he still is, underneath. 

So she stands on tiptoe and kisses him until he’s steady again. 

When she pulls back, he looks down her body, noticing that she’s dressed in casual hunting gear and not much more. “We brought nothing,” he remarks. 

And because this is already sappy as hell, Buffy shrugs and runs a hand over her ribbon. “We’ve got what we need.”

And hey, upside. She probably won’t be executed for regicide anytime soon. Total bonus. 

+


End file.
